The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs Collection

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  God alone knew the answer to those questions, for it was He who had shaped her. As the psalm said, God’s eyes had seen her substance when she was made in secret.

  Her father grabbed a towel off the clothesline and dried his face and the back of his neck as he returned to the porch. Once there, he settled onto one of the wooden chairs. “I’m all ears.”

  “Me too,” her sister chimed in.

  “It’s about” — she drew a deep breath — “running for mayor. Hiram Tattersall is still the only candidate to replace Mayor Hopkins. Cleo suggested that I should run for the office, and I haven’t been able to forget her words. I… I’m thinking I should do it.” She looked from her father to Cleo and back again. “What do you think?”

  “Yes!” Cleo clapped her hands. “Do it, Gwennie!”

  Calmly, her father asked, “Do you want to be mayor?”

  “Don’t you think I can do the job?”

  “That’s not what I said. I’m asking if you want to be the mayor.”

  She hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yesterday, when Cleo suggested it, I thought she was crazy. But then Mr. Patterson at the newspaper said he would support me if I declared my candidacy, and the more I considered the possibility and the more I prayed about it, the more I realized I’d like to do this. I think I could be a good mayor.”

  “What would you like to accomplish if you were elected?”

  She pictured Hiram Tattersall as he’d driven over her neighbor’s flowers. “First of all, I would make certain we enforced the laws against public drunkenness.”

  “And then? ”

  “Then I’d like to find ways to better our school and to bring in new businesses now that the mines aren’t operating like they used to. We have too many who are unemployed. Men who want to work but who don’t have any place to do so. After that? Well, I’d just have to see.”

  At last her father smiled. “I have no doubt you will see and do what needs to be done.”

  “You do?” Relief rushed through her. “You think I would make a good mayor?”

  “Of course I do. You’re smart as a whip, Gwen. You can do anything you set your mind to. Of course, I may be a bit prejudiced, being your dad.”

  Cleo slapped her thighs with the palms of her hands. “You bet we’re prejudiced, but we’re right too. Gwennie, I’ll help every way I can. Maybe I could be in charge of your campaign. You do it. You hurry back to town and file those papers or whatever you need to do to become our next mayor.”

  Gwen didn’t care if they were prejudiced. Their support meant everything to her.

  “All right. I will. I’ll do it today.”

  THREE

  “Well, I’ll be.” Jackson Jones, the Bethlehem Springs city clerk, peered at Gwen over the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Here we thought this mayoral election was over before it started, and now it looks like we’ll have us a three-way race.”

  “Three? But I thought only Mr. Tattersall — ”

  “That McKinley fellow came in a few hours back to do the same thing you’re doing.”

  McKinley? Morgan McKinley was running for mayor of Bethlehem Springs? But he was a stranger in this town. He owned a home here but spent no time in it. He’d made no effort to meet his neighbors or learn what mattered to those who lived in Bethlehem Springs. Why would he think he should be mayor?

  “Who’d’ve thought it’d come down to a saloon keeper, a newcomer, or a woman?” Mr. Jones shook his head. “Looks like it’ll be a surprise who we call Mr. Mayor no matter who wins.”

  Mr. Mayor? Not if she could help it. Madam Mayor was more like it.

  With a defiant lift of her chin, Gwen said, “It should make for an interesting race, shouldn’t it?”

  “That it should. Wait till I tell the missus. She won’t believe it.”

  With a word of thanks, Gwen took the necessary paperwork and left the clerk’s office, her confidence already waning. Did she stand a chance of winning now? People knew Hiram Tattersall couldn’t be trusted. At least all the people who didn’t frequent his saloon did. But what about Morgan McKinley? He might be little known, but he was a wealthy man from a prominent family, presumably a sober one. Would the voters choose him over her?

  She recalled the man she’d met on the road earlier in the day. Black hair and piercing dark eyes. An angular face and lean build. He would cut a dashing figure standing at a podium.

  But Gwen had something he did not — a desire to better her town because she belonged to it. He could be intelligent, charismatic, wealthy, or a dozen other things that might win him votes, but she had love for Bethlehem Springs and its citizens. That was something he didn’t have, couldn’t have.

  “We’ll just see what you’re made of, Mr. McKinley,” she whispered as she walked toward home. “We’ll just see.”

  Gwen had reached the corner of Idaho and Wallula when she was hailed by Charles Benson, a man who fancied himself her suitor no matter how often she spurned his attentions. Perhaps she was too gentle with her refusals.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Arlington.” Charles crossed the street. “You’re looking particularly lovely today. Is that a new bonnet you’re wearing?”

  “You’re very kind, Mr. Benson. But no. The hat isn’t new.”

  “Well, it looks new on you.” He motioned in the direction of her house. “May I walk you home?”

  She stifled a groan. “If you wish.”

  He fell into step beside her. “Did you hear that Gloria Birdwell is coming to Bethlehem Springs in July? I heard her sing in Boise last summer. She is nowhere as beautiful as you, Miss Arlington, but she does have an extraordinary voice, to be sure. It’s no wonder she’s called the Songbird of the West.”

  Gwen quickened her pace, as if she could out-walk the question that was sure to come next.

  “It would be my great honor to escort you to the concert, Miss Arlington. Would you grant me the pleasure of your company?”

  “How kind of you to ask, Mr. Benson.” Thank goodness she was almost home. “But I’m afraid I must decline. I don’t know if I will be able to attend, as wonderful as it sounds.”

  “Well, perhaps you would allow me to ask again as the time grows closer.”

  Everything in her wanted to say she would rather he didn’t ask again, but politeness overruled. “If you wish.” Reaching the bottom step of her front porch, she stopped and faced Charles. “Thank you for escorting me home, Mr. Benson. Have a pleasant afternoon.”

  With a nod of her head, she hurried up the steps and into the house before he could say anything more. Once safely inside, she leaned against the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

  She supposed there was nothing wrong with Charles. He was polite, good natured, and undeniably handsome. And yet she felt no desire to spend time in his company. But her lack of interest hadn’t discouraged him. Not in the least. Charles was nothing if not persistent.

  Gwen pushed away from the door and crossed to a small table set against the wall. A mirror hung above it. She stared at her reflection as she untied the netting that covered her face and held her straw hat — the large crown swathed in yellow silk chiffon — in place. It was, as Charles had said, a pretty hat, but it wasn’t new or even worth mentioning.

  Why was it men thought a woman’s appearance required flattery? Why not ask what she was reading or what she thought about America’s position regarding the war in Europe? Why not inquire about her thoughts on temperance and the chance that Idaho might become a dry state? Why didn’t they care what was beneath the pretty bonnet on a woman’s head? On her head?

  She removed her hat and set it on the table, then walked through the parlor and dining room and into the second bedroom, which served as her library. A large desk filled one side of the room. She sat in the chair behind it, pulled several sheets of paper from a drawer, and picked up a pen.

  “I will not be judged by appearances,” she whispered. “I will make the people of this town hear me.”

  At th
e top of the paper, she wrote: What I want to accomplish as mayor of Bethlehem Springs.

  In his youth, Morgan had lived in stately mansions, hobnobbed with the best of society, and spent his summers in Italy, France, and a few more exotic locations. He’d been accustomed to servants seeing not only to his needs but to his most frivolous wishes as well.

  He thanked God he hadn’t turned into a worthless fool, the way some men of his acquaintance had. He could have, if not for his mother.

  Danielle Hubert McKinley had come from the finest of New York families — the Huberts, able to trace their ancestry back to English and European royalty. But Danielle’s heart, filled with the love of God, had yearned to leave the world a better place for having been there.

  Before her husband died and her own health began to fail, she’d taken her son — and later, his younger sister — with her on visits to poorhouses, jails, and hospitals. Many a time, Morgan had sat on a chair on the top floor of a noisy tenement house, the scent of rotting garbage rising from the street below. He’d watched his mother ladle soup into a sick woman’s mouth and seen the tender way she spoke to those with dirty faces, ragged clothes, and rotten teeth. Never had he seen her act as if she were someone’s better. Not even once.

  Later, when chronic pain became her companion and she’d relied on others to tend to her needs, his mother seldom complained. Instead she encouraged her caregivers and thanked them for all they did on her behalf.

  And to everyone — those for whom she cared and those who cared for her — she shared the hope she had in Christ. Pauper or prince, it made little difference to Danielle McKinley.

  It was in the latter years of his mother’s life, as Morgan took her to spas in England and Europe looking for some way to ease her pain, that the idea for the New Hope Health Spa was born. He’d seen the relief she’d found in the warm mineral waters, but had also seen that those places had room only for the wealthy.

  “The poor need this too, Morgan,” his mother had said. “Oh, that there would be such a place — one that welcomed everyone, rich and poor. And one where God was invited to move and to heal. Make it happen, son.”

  All of this went through Morgan’s mind as he stood in the front parlor of the house he owned in Bethlehem Springs.

  While the room was small in comparison to the ballrooms and halls of his boyhood homes, it was large enough for entertaining members of this town’s elite society. And if he, the outsider, wanted to win the election for mayor, then he must entertain. He had only six weeks to become a fixture in the minds of the town’s citizens. From now until the election, he must spend more time in Bethlehem Springs than he spent at the resort. It was as simple as that.

  Fagan had informed him that his opponent, one Hiram Tattersall, was not particularly well liked. That was good news. Still, Morgan surmised Harrison Carter would not be glad to know he was running for office. If the chairman of the county commissioners gave his support to Tattersall, the election might not be easily won, despite Morgan’s best efforts.

  He left the parlor and went into what he planned to use as his study. A large table filled the center of the room, its surface covered with plans and drawings and account sheets he’d brought with him from the building site. After glancing at the papers, he moved them to one end, clearing the space he needed to begin strategizing his campaign.

  An hour later, he had filled four sheets of paper with the chicken scratches he called writing when a knock sounded on his front door. He wished he could pretend he wasn’t home, but he couldn’t. His automobile was parked in plain sight. However, his visitor — in addition to interrupting his train of thought — had served to remind him of one more thing to add to his list.

  Hire household staff, he scrawled before rising from his chair and walking toward the front of the house. He opened the door to find Kenneth Barker, the minister of the Methodist church, standing on the porch.

  Several times over the past year, Kenneth Barker had visited the resort site. On his third visit, he’d invited Morgan to join him at the Methodist church some Sunday.

  “I would, Reverend Barker, but we hold our own service here,” Morgan had said. “A lot of our workers wouldn’t go into town for church, but they’ll sit in the tent with others while some of us share words from the Bible.”

  “Ah, then you care for the spiritual condition of the men in your employ.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” the reverend answered. “I predict that you and I shall become friends, Mr. McKinley. I do, indeed.”

  Morgan had thought then that he liked the idea of becoming friends with Kenneth Barker. The problem was time. His was all used up by the demands of the resort’s construction.

  “Oh, good. You are here.” Kenneth removed his hat. “I saw your automobile in the drive. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “You’re always welcome, Reverend. You know that.” Morgan stepped back, pulling the door open wide. “Come in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Morgan led the way into the parlor. “It’s a bit dusty. Mrs. Cheevers cleans on Thursdays.” He motioned toward a chair. “I’d offer you something to eat or drink, but I didn’t bring much with me from camp and I haven’t made it to the market yet.”

  “Sounds to me as if you need a wife to look after you, my friend.” With a wink, he quoted Proverbs, “ ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.’ ”

  As the two men sat down, Morgan said, “I’d love to meet such a woman.” If one exists in these modern times. “But it isn’t easy when one’s moved around as much as I have.” And it isn’t easy when many young women are only interested in my money.

  “Ah, but it seems you’re putting down roots in Bethlehem Springs.”

  “Making a stab at it anyway.”

  “Why don’t you join us at church on Sunday and you can make the acquaintance of a number of our eligible young ladies.”

  Morgan’s mind filled instantly with a vision of the attractive blonde he’d met on the road t hat morning. He wondered if Kenneth knew her and, if so, if Morgan would meet her on Sunday as well.

  “Speaking of our town” — the reverend leaned forward — “have I been rightly informed that you are running for mayor?”

  Kenneth’s question drove out all thoughts of pretty blondes in buggies. “News travels fast.”

  “It does, indeed. Then it’s true?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Well, thank the good Lord. You may be a newcomer to our town, but I believe you’ll win easily. No one thinks Mr. Tattersall would be a competent public servant. It pains me to say it, but the man is rarely sober. I’m surprised he could be bothered to complete the paperwork required to enter the race. And as for the other candidate, I’m not sure Bethlehem Springs is prepared to elect a woman as mayor.”

  “A woman? What woman are you talking about?”

  It was Kenneth’s turn to chuckle. “I guess not all the news travels fast. Miss Gwen Arlington has declared her candidacy for office. It’s now a three-way race.”

  “But the clerk said nothing to me when I was in the municipal building this morning. In fact, he told me — ”

  “She declared for office this afternoon.”

  Miss Gwen Arlington. Probably one of those dour-faced suffragettes, the type he’d seen back East and in England. Not that Morgan didn’t applaud their cause. He believed in equality for women under the law, as had both of his parents. Still, there was something about those radical women in bloomers who marched about with signs and chained themselves to pillars and posts that set his teeth on edge.

  “Have you met Miss Arlington?” Kenneth asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  The reverend chuckled. “If you’d met her, you would remember.”

  So he was right. Miss Arlington wa
s one of those unforgettable radicals. No wonder Kenneth was glad Morgan was in the race.

  FOUR

  When Harrison Carter heard the news that both Morgan McKinley and Gwen Arlington were running for the office of mayor, he wanted to hit something — or someone. However, he hid his foul temper until his secretary left the office. Then he rose from his chair and stepped to the window looking down on Main Street, his hands clasped behind his back, his brow furrowed in thought.

  Morgan McKinley could not be allowed to win the election. He had to be stopped. Harrison wanted him gone from Bethlehem Springs, not becoming its mayor. McKinley had to be forced to abandon that confounded resort and return to his home in the East — or wherever else he wished, just so long as he didn’t stay here.

  Thus far, Harrison had helped frustrate McKinley’s plans, though he hadn’t managed to stop them altogether. He did not doubt he would ultimately succeed in damaging the profitability of the venture. McKinley might be wealthier than most, but from all reports, he was also a shrewd businessman. There would come a time when he realized he was throwing good money after bad. That’s when Harrison would step in and offer to buy the land.

  Not that he cared a fig about the hot springs or the resort. No, there was something much more valuable up there: gold. Lots and lots of gold.

  And Harrison meant for it to be his.

  But first he must decide what to do about this election. If Hiram Tattersall became mayor, there would be no problem. The man was a fool and would do whatever Harrison told him to. But now the citizens of Bethlehem Springs had a better choice of candidates, and it was doubtful Tattersall would win. Harrison couldn’t come out in support of the man. Folks would think he’d lost his mind.

  That left him with Gwen Arlington.

  Hmm. A tiny slip of a thing. Pretty. Unmarried. If he recalled correctly, she made her living giving piano lessons, and she also wrote articles for the local newspaper. Uninteresting pieces of fluff, in his opinion, but she would have a following of sorts. Her father owned a cattle outfit northeast of town and had some influence in the community, having lived in the area since before Bethlehem Springs was anything more than a wide spot in the road. That might give her some advantage.